Make Wiggler Squirm
by I.C. Weener
Summary: I compromised.
1. Breath of the Wild

" _Freedom."_

\- Braveheart

" _Takeru-chan."_

\- Muv-Luv Alternative

* * *

Mipha plunged the Lightscale Trident through Waterblight Ganon's pulsating nucleus. She wrenched the pole sideways, gritting her teeth as she vengefully twisted the prongs through the hideous creature's Malice-flesh and listened to it squeal. It thrashed for a second in the shallow water of Ruta's sanctum before it finally gave up and died under her grip.

The instant she let go of her weapon, Mipha toppled weakly to all fours. The Waterblight's ambush should have been the end of her, but her work wasn't finished. She reached slowly and desperately with one arm after the other to drag herself through Ruta's waters, swimming in slow motion across the stone tiles. Waves of red mist trailed in the current behind her as she forced herself to crawl inch by inch toward the temple altar.

Finally, Ruta's control terminal was within her reach. She pressed her palm against the carved surface of the ancient pedestal, focused the last of her powers, and collapsed lifelessly to the ground.

* * *

The battle to save Hyrule was on the brink of disaster. Calamity Ganon's disease continued to fester even with all the firepower thrown against him.

Massive red beams from three of the Divine Beasts constantly struck his black misshapen mass. Princess Zelda stood defiantly in front of the castle with her hands held upward, blasting him with her own powers of Light. Link was huddled in front of Zelda with his shield raised, a tiny blue figure protecting the hope of the entire world from cataclysmic darkness. The Sheikah Slate flailed from his belt in the screaming whirlwind as if it were going to break off of its leather sling and go flying at any moment. The other Champions could be heard shouting through the device's voice receptors.

" _The three of us aren't strong enough by ourselves!"_ Urbosa said. _"We can't do this without Ruta!"_

" _Dammit, what's taking her so long?!_ " Revali angrily yelled.

" _She's probably just taking her time slicing her little goo buddy apart!"_ Daruk answered jokingly. _"She keeps everything bottled up so much, I'll bet she just needed to vent after that thing tried to kill her!"_

Zelda and the Champions pressed on with all their power, but Calamity Ganon barely managed to overcome them. Just when things were at their bleakest, just when all hope seemed lost and the entire castle was about to be swallowed up in despair, the fourth Divine Beast beam suddenly streamed through the air from the direction of Zora's Domain.

Calamity Ganon screamed in agony as the attack struck him on the eastern side and joined with Rudania's. Inspired by the sudden turnabout, the light shining from Zelda's palms doubled in intensity and began binding around the Calamity like a golden net. Ganon was left paralyzed by the combined might of his enemies.

Link lowered his shield and charged forward. He flew like an arrow up the waterfall of black Malice forming Ganon's body and flipped into the sky over Ganon's head. As he came crashing back down, he drove the edge of the Master Sword straight through the rancid beast's forehead.

Link and Zelda were thrown in opposite directions as Calamity Ganon thrashed in misery. Blinding light consumed the entire city.

* * *

Central Hyrule was in ruins, but now it had all the time it needed to heal its wounds and rebuild. Countless lives had been lost in the nightmarish carnage, but countless more were spared to carry on their memory.

Calamity Ganon was gone.

In the rubble of Castle Town, the few Hylian soldiers who remained worked to rescue any survivors they could find under the shells of fallen Guardians. Princess Zelda had been immediately named the realm's new leader after her father's passing. She was holding the Sheikah Slate between her hands with her eyes studiously fixed on its screen. Link staggered on groggy feet behind her, shaking his head to clear the stars that still blurred his eyes.

"How's Revali holding up?" he asked from a few feet away.

" _Just peachy_ ," Revali's voice sarcastically chimed through the Slate. " _You guys call me up here for a sniper job and I get a ball of slime thrown in my face. It's going to take a whole_ _ **week**_ _to get all this tar out of my feathers."_

"Urbosa?" Link asked.

" _I've got a broken sword and this shield wasn't going to take much more from that Thunderblight, but I'll be fine. Vah Naboris and I will help in any way we can."_ the Gerudo Champion replied.

"Daruk?"

" _A little tired. A little banged up,"_ Daruk mumbled in response. _"Nothing a couple of hours in the Goron Springs can't fix. Poor_ _Rudania's gonna need a clean-up crew, though_."

"What about Mipha?" Link said.

The Sheikah Slate was completely silent in Zelda's hands.

"Mipha?" Link said again, his voice growing more worried. He leaned closer to Zelda's shoulder. She turned toward him with a fearful look on her face.

"Link, it's Vah Ruta…" Zelda struggled to say. "She's the only one who's stopped moving."

* * *

Link was calling her name from a distant foggy shore. Mipha's eyes slowly fluttered half-open, and in the glare she saw him kneeling beside her. He was cradling her in his arms, with Zelda and the other Champions standing behind him. They all wore the same regretful expression.

Mipha looked up at Link and asked the first thing that was always in her thoughts.

"Are you safe?"

"Of course I am," Link tried to smile as he answered. "You really bailed us out back there."

"Did we beat him?" Mipha asked hopefully.

"Sealed away for good," Link nodded.

As she sighed quietly, her head fin touched his chest and brushed against something that couldn't have been the cloth from his Champion Tunic. She squinted her blurry vision, and for the first time she saw what armor he had been wearing ever since they had to take their separate places for the war against Calamity Ganon. He was dressed in the Zora Armor she had spent months crafting him.

"Your armor," she gasped. "It's…"

"King Dorephan told me everything," he whispered over her so she could save her strength. "He was worried you were too shy to ever ask me yourself. We wanted to surprise you after Ganon was out of the way. I wouldn't have trusted anything else to guard me."

Mipha's eyes twinkled with dim golden joy. She had grown so scared after he became more distant from her in the days leading up to Calamity Ganon's return. She was almost certain he had let her go from his heart, if she had ever been part of it at all. But here he was now. He had just been waiting for the right time to tell her his real feelings, after all his other fears had been put to rest. He was really going to accept her proposal and spend the rest of his life with her... or at least, he would have. Knowing he had always returned her love was all she needed to help her find her peace.

She weakly looked past his shoulder and toward the other Champions.

"Urbosa, Revali, Daruk… are the rest of you alright?"

"You don't have to worry about us, princess," Daruk said in a bright voice that masked his unusually somber tone. "Those slimeballs caught us off guard, but we show'd 'em who's boss almost as well as you did."

"And Zelda's powers… Did she finally… ?" Mipha's eyes glimpsed between Zelda and Link.

"I can't really explain it," Link shook his head. "This Guardian was about to finish me off, and then she came running in front of me and they just started working on their own. It all happened out of nowhere."

Mipha nodded and smiled peacefully, understanding what it meant.

"I'm so happy everything turned out this way. I only wish this moment could have lasted longer," she said tiredly. She felt her body starting to shiver. "Tell my father I'm sorry I'll have to go back on my word."

"What are you talking about, Mipha?" Link said with a nervous chuckle. "Come on. You're the one who said you'd always be there to protect me."

Mipha slowly reached up with her small claws. Her fingers brushed Link under his chin, tracing the single white scale sewn into the plate mail around his neck.

"And I will be. I always will," she said in a fading whisper.

"Mipha, wait!" Link shouted frantically. "You can't… Not after all of this!"

She slowly rolled her head into the crook of his arm as she closed her eyes.

"Watch over Zelda from now on. She's… your princess… now…"

Mipha quietly exhaled for the last time.

Link pulled the Zora Champion's limp form against his heart, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his teeth as tears streamed down his face. Zelda and the other Champions lowered their heads in grief.

Vah Ruta's chambers filled with the sounds of gently running water, and the screams of a heartbroken hero.

* * *

 _Author's note: You are the wiggler. That is the real plot twist. And now you are emotionally squirming._


	2. The Champion's Ballad

" _Yesterday, I was awash in a pool of tears. I had nearly given up hope and resigned myself to being trapped here as a spirit for the rest of eternity."_

\- Mipha, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

" _Mitchell, I'm sorry about Goose. Everybody liked him. ...I'm sorry."_

\- Revali, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

 _"Wait a minute, Joe. You can't go after Connor alone."_

 _"I'm not going after Connor. Not yet, anyway. I've got to go find something first."_

 _"What's that?"_

 _"...Myself."_

\- Viper

* * *

The sun's morning rays reached over Hyrule Castle for the first time since the reconstruction fully began. The city was taking its first steps to recovery, but bringing back its old peaceful way of life seemed like an impossible task. The structures that hadn't been burned down or flattened by haywire Guardians were being used as relief shelters. The rest was a ghost town.

Zelda stood on the crumbling castle balcony surveying her kingdom. Link stood on her right leaning over a fragment of the broken balustrade, never moving and never saying a word. He was clad in the Zora Armor with only half of the straps haphazardly fastened under his arms. It was the only thing he wore these days. His eyes were sunken from countless sleepless nights. His features were gaunt and exhausted like he had been wandering lost in the desert for the better part of a year. As he stared blankly off into the distance, his eyes were fixed only on one thing: The rubble of a trampled mermaid fountain a mile away in the market square.

"They put out the last of the fires near the Temple of Time," Zelda said, turning her head toward him and trying to cheer him up. "The ranch outside town has started tending horses again. I'm sure you'll want to pay a visit. It's hard to believe all of this was nearly destroyed only weeks ago."

Link didn't make a sound. It was as if his empty body was standing beside her while his mind was off in some other forsaken realm.

"There are still so many more people who need help, though," Zelda said with concern. "Do you think we'll ever really bring the kingdom back to its splendor?"

"Who knows?" he barely bothered to reply. It drained Zelda of whatever optimism she still clung to.

The princess placed her hands on the railing and peered downward, becoming a mirror image beside Link. Her mind slowly drifted to the same lonely place as his. It was all he ever seemed to be thinking about now.

"I miss Mipha, too," She sighed. "She was my closest friend next to Urbosa. Someone I could relate anything to and she'd always listen. I can't even imagine how it must feel for you."

Her head tilted lower as her shoulders began to shake.

"Link…" she whispered with tears welling in her eyes. She cowered forward until her hair was dangling over the balcony, fists clenched against the stone balustrade. Then it all came flowing out.

"I'm sorry I got her killed. It's all my fault. I'd lose my father a hundred times over if it meant I could give her back to you." She shook her head in unbearable remorse. "She was too kind for all the expectations I put on her. She belonged on the battlefield with her Zora army protecting her, not fighting by herself as a pilot. I'm so stupid for not picking someone stronger for Vah Ruta."

Link's palm suddenly closed over her hand, making her gasp softly. His fingers squeezed hers not in anger or insult, but in support.

"It had to be Mipha. Don't fool yourself into thinking otherwise," he said in a low voice, his head still hanging down. "No one else would have pushed themselves like she did."

Zelda glanced toward her right. Link slowly turned toward his left. His face was chiseled with restless grief, but there was a new softness starting to emerge. The bitterness and the pain were starting to fade from his eyes, replaced by the beginnings of acceptance. Zelda's despair was slowly drawing him out of the dark.

"Do you forgive me?" she whispered.

"I never blamed you." Link smiled slightly, drawing back his own tears with a deep breath, realizing the truth for himself.

"This was what she wanted."

The two leaned into each other and hugged. Zelda thanked Link over and over again for freeing him from her guilt in joyful weeping. In his own silent way, Link thanked her for freeing his spirit.

They gently pulled away and looked into each other's eyes. Zelda timidly gathered her thoughts and spoke first.

"I still haven't found a royal guard to join me at the coronation ceremony. I know you've been saying you aren't interested, but I was wondering if you changed your mind. Have you considered it anymore?"

Yesterday, he would have answered her with a long stretch of silence and a half-murmured "No." Now he only needed a moment to overcome his own anxiety. He gave her a small nod to put her worries to rest.

"I'll be there, Zelda. You can't fix the entire kingdom by yourself."

A look of hope returned to her eyes. Giving her one last tender glance, Link straightened his scaled tunic and started to walk toward the stairs.

"Ah! Link, where are you going?" Zelda asked in surprise.

He peered over his shoulder and showed her a small bittersweet smile.

"Just taking a trip over to the Domain for the day," he answered. "I told her I'd check in on Sidon. I don't want him growing up only thinking of her as a statue at the palace."

"Maybe I could come with you one of these days?" Zelda asked warmly. "Once everything has been sorted out here? We've never gone there together."

"She'd like that," he said, quietly adding, "I would, too."

He nodded and went on his way.

* * *

 _Author's note: I hope you enjoyed Zelda's journey through Divine Beast Vah Motorcycle._


End file.
